A relatively new and strong way to protect your documents uses an Information Rights Management server to authenticate users who create or receive documents or e-mail that have restricted permissions. As noted in Figure 11-1, some enterprises have their own rights management servers. To use Information Rights Management with Word 2007, you have to have the Windows Rights Management client software installed.

It should be installed automatically if you’re using Word with Windows Vista, but you do need to install the client when using Windows XP. Word will prompt you to download and install this software if you open a document that’s protected with Information Rights Management.

If you don’t have access to one, you can use Microsoft’s free trial Information Rights Management service.

To use this service, you and all users with whom you share rights-managed documents or e-mail must have .NET Passport–registered e-mail addresses. (These are also called Windows Live IDs.) The biggest risk is that Microsoft might at some point end the free trial service.

You’ll then have three months in which to move to a different rights management server, subscribe to whatever service Microsoft offers (assuming they replace the free trial service with a for-pay service), or remove rights management protection from your documents so you don’t lose access to them.

To restrict permission by using Information Rights Management, choose Office Button?Prepare?Restrict Permission?Restricted Access. If you do not have Rights Management software installed on your computer, the dialog box shown in Figure 11-1 appears. If you choose to proceed, a five-step wizard walks you through the process of setting up rights management and associating your .NET Passport account or Windows Live ID.

If you are not logged on to the rights management server account you want to use, or if you need to specify, add, or remove a user account, choose Office Button?Prepare?Restrict Permission?Manage Credentials, which displays the Select User dialog box, shown in Figure 11-2. If you need to add a .NET Passport or Windows Live ID, click Add. To remove an account, select the one you want to remove and then click Remove. Select the account you want to use (if desired, enable Always Use This Account), and then click OK.

If credentials are already associated, and/or when you click OK in the dialog box shown in Figure 11-2, Word displays the Permission dialog box shown in Figure 11-3. Type the e-mail addresses of people with permission to read and change the document in the boxes provided.

E-mail addresses should be separated with semicolons. Note that the Read and Change boxes use your Outlook e-mail address cache as a source
of potential e-mail addresses to enter. When you type the first character of an address, cached addresses beginning with that character are listed.

To see more options, click More Options, not surprisingly, which displays the different Permission dialog box shown in Figure 11-4. Note that you can set an expiration date for permissions you grant. In addition, recipients of the document will not be able to print, copy, or access document content programmatically (for example, use a program to extract XML data) unless the corresponding options are checked. For additional protection, if you don’t want to receive requests for additional permission, remove the check next to Users Can Request Additional Permissions From. Once you’ve selected permissions, click Set Defaults to make the selected permissions the default for future documents on which you restrict permissions.

Click Require a Connection To Verify A User’s Permission to require that individuals to whom you are granting permissions be connected to the rights management server, either over the Internet or over the respective
intranet. Note that if you have not installed the Windows RMS client for Rights Management Services, this option will be grayed out as unavailable.

When you click OK in either of the dialog boxes shown in Figure 11-3 or Figure 11-4, Word adds the Do Not Distribute bar at the top of the document window. Clicking Change Permissions redisplays the dialog box shown in Figure 11-5.

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